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Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) still stands today as one of the most influential governance models in the water sector. Whereas previous analyses of IWRM have focused on the effectiveness of the institutional models it embodies and on policy implementation gaps, we examine the meanings that IWRM discourses have given to water management issues and how these meanings have in turn supported certain policy choices, institutions and practices. We use discourse analysis to study IWRM discourses in Nepal, where IWRM was introduced as the guiding policy principle for water management more than a decade ago, but not yet operationalised. We argue that IWRM discourses have operated a discursive closure in policy debates, thereby limiting the range of policy and institutional choices perceived as politically possible. In particular, we found that the promotion of IWRM as an institutional holy grail has obscured critical issues of social (in) justice related to water resources development by promoting an apolitical and techno-managerial vision of water development, largely centralised and relying on expert knowledge. We defend the need to move away from institutional panaceas and towards deliberative processes that allow alternative voices, discourses and knowledge.

Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) still stands today as one of the most influential governance models in the water sector. Whereas previous analyses of IWRM have focused on the effectiveness of the institutional models it embodies and on policy implementation gaps, we examine the meanings that IWRM discourses have given to water management issues and how these meanings have in turn supported certain policy choices, institutions and practices. We use discourse analysis to study IWRM discourses in Nepal, where IWRM was introduced as the guiding policy principle for water management more than a decade ago, but not yet operationalised. We argue that IWRM discourses have operated a discursive closure in policy debates, thereby limiting the range of policy and institutional choices perceived as politically possible. In particular, we found that the promotion of IWRM as an institutional holy grail has obscured critical issues of social (in)justice related to water resources development by promoting an apolitical and techno-managerial vision of water development, largely centralised and relying on expert knowledge. We defend the need to move away from institutional panaceas and towards deliberative processes that allow alternative voices, discourses and knowledge.

This study attempts to examine those unique aspects of interbasin water transfer planning, which are of critical importance to the sustainable water resources development in India. It focuses on the crucial aspect of accurate quantification of surface water availability, which determines the entire feasibility of a water transfer. It also illustrates the impacts of upstream water resources development on the deltas' environment thus justifying the deltas' environmental flow requirements. The report targets government departments, research institutions and NGOs - primarily in India and other countries of the region - which are engaged or interested in issues of interbasin water transfer and environmental water management. The research intends to: contribute to the effectiveness of water resources planning and management in India; emphasize the need for urgent improvement of access to hydrometeorological data in the country; and aim to stimulate further debate on water transfers.

The Government of India's National River-Linking Plan (NRLP) aims to alleviate emerging water scarcity problems by transferring water from well endowed to more deficient areas. This study evaluated the plausible future scenarios of water availability and use under conditions of various cropping patterns, and with the explicit inclusion (for the first time) of environmental water requirements for one of the links of the NRLP: from the Godavari River at Polavaram to the Krishna River at Vijayawada?the 'Polavaram Project'. The scenarios were evaluated using the WEAP (Water Evaluation and Planning) model. The study generates information for use in managing emerging trade-offs. The importance of explicit accounting for monthly variability in description of water supply and demand, in the monsoon-driven climate conditions of the region, is advocated. Such detailed scenario simulations and inclusion of previously unaccounted for factors/uses can help to create awareness of potential future problems, inform water management practices and suggest management alternatives. Results show that the proposed water storage and transfer will reduce water deficit within the project command area and significantly reduce dry slow river flow into the Lower Godavari Delta.

Debates over the effectiveness of foreign aid have been recently revived both in the development sector and in the academia. International funding agencies have notably adopted new principles to improve aid delivery. Using the particular case study of a set of irrigation interventions in Western Nepal, we argue that these steps will not radically improve the pro-poor outcomes of aid interventions as long as the latter are framed in an apolitical, technical and managerial vision and discourse of development. We propose to adopt social and environmental justice as an analytical framework and vocabulary for action.

Since the late 1990s, river basin planning has become a central idea in water resources management and a mainstream approach supported by international donors through their water programs globally. This article presents river basin planning as a function of power and contested arena of power struggles, where state actors create, sustain, and reproduce their bureaucratic power through the overall shaping of (imagined) bureaucratic territory. It argues that river basin planning is not an antidote to current 'dysfunction' in water resources management, rooted in overlapping jurisdictions, fragmented decision making, and bureaucratic competitions between various government agencies. On the contrary, it illustrates how river basin planning becomes a new 'territorial frontier', created and depicted by different government agencies as their envisioned operational boundary and as a means to sustain and increase their bureaucratic power and sectoral decision-making authority, amidst ongoing processes of federalism in Nepal.

Since the late 1990s, river basin planning has become a central idea in water resources management and a mainstream approach supported by international donors through their water programs globally. This article presents river basin planning as a function of power and contested arena of power struggles, where state actors create, sustain, and reproduce their bureaucratic power through the overall shaping of (imagined) bureaucratic territory. It argues that river basin planning is not an antidote to current 'dysfunction' in water resources management, rooted in overlapping jurisdictions, fragmented decision making, and bureaucratic competitions between various government agencies. On the contrary, it illustrates how river basin planning becomes a new 'territorial frontier', created and depicted by different government agencies as their envisioned operational boundary and as a means to sustain and increase their bureaucratic power and sectoral decision-making authority, amidst ongoing processes of federalism in Nepal. ; Peer Review

As demand and competition for water resources increase, the river basin has become the primary unit for water management and planning. While appealing in principle, practical implementation of river basin management and allocation has often been problematic. This paper examines the case of the Krishna basin in South India. It highlights that conflicts over basin water are embedded in a broad reality of planning and development where multiple scales of decisionmaking and non-water issues are at play. While this defines the river basin as a disputed 'space of dependence', the river basin has yet to acquire a social reality. It is not yet a 'space of engagement' in and for which multiple actors take actions. This explains the endurance of an interstate dispute over the sharing of the Krishna waters and sets limits to what can be achieved through further basin water allocation and adjudication mechanisms - tribunals - that are too narrowly defined. There is a need to extend the domain of negotiation from that of a single river basin to multiple scales and to non-water sectors. Institutional arrangements for basin management need to internalise the political spaces of the Indian polity: the states and the panchayats. This re-scaling process is more likely to shape the river basin as a space of engagement in which partial agreements can be iteratively renegotiated, and constitute a promising alternative to the current interstate stalemate.

Though springs are the primary source of water for communities in the mid-hills of Nepal, an in-depth scientific understanding of spring systems is missing, preventing the design of effective climate-resilient interventions for long-term sustainability of springs. This study marks the first attempt to combine environmental isotopes analysis with hydrometric and hydrogeological measurements to identify dominant recharge zones for springs in two mountainous catchments—Banlek and Shikarpur—in Far-Western Nepal. In total, 422 water samples collected from rainfall, springs and streams between March 2016 and March 2017 were analyzed for their isotopic composition (d18O and dD). Isotopic composition of rainwater shows seasonality, suggesting that different sources of water vapor cause rains in monsoon and in dry season. Rainfall responses of individual springs were used to identify connections to unconfined and deeper groundwater strata. The isotopic composition of springs in the two catchments ranges from -9.55 to -8.06‰ for d18O and -67.58 to -53.51‰ for dD. The isotopic signature of the spring sources falls close to the local meteoric water line for the corresponding season, indicating strong rainfall contribution to springs. Altitudinal isotopic gradients suggest mean recharge elevation of 2,600–2,700 m asl for springs in Shikarpur, which lies beyond the surface-water catchment, and a recharge elevation of 1,000–1,100 m asl for Banlek, which partially extends beyond the surface-water catchment. The demarcated recharge zones will be used by government agencies to implement recharge interventions to increase the resiliency and reliability of springs in Far-Western Nepal.

The impact of climate change (CC) on water resources is likely to affect agricultural systems and food security. This is especially true for Nepal, a least developed country, where a high percentage of the population is dependent on agriculture for its livelihoods. It is thus crucial for Nepal?s leaders and resource managers to draft and begin implementing national adaptation plans. This working paper aims to create a more comprehensive understanding of how the impacts of CC will be realized at different scales in Nepal, from household livelihoods to national food security, and the many institutions governing the ultimate adaptation process.

Since the 1990s, Indian farmers, supported by the government, have partially shifted from surface-water to groundwater irrigation in response to the uncertainty in surface-water availability. Water-management authorities only slowly began to consider sustainable use of groundwater resources as a prime concern. Now, a reliable integration of groundwater resources for water-allocation planning is needed to prevent aquifer overexploitation. Within the 11,000-km2 Musi River sub-basin (South India), human interventions have dramatically impacted the hard-rock aquifers, with a water-table drop of 0.18m/a over the period 1989-2004. A fully distributed numerical groundwater model was successfully implemented at catchment scale. The model allowed two distinct conceptualizations of groundwater availability to be quantified: one that was linked to easily quantified fluxes, and one that was more expressive of long-term sustainability by taking account of all sources and sinks. Simulations showed that the latter implied 13% less available groundwater for exploitation than did the former. In turn, this has major implications for the existing waterallocation modelling framework used to guide decision makers and water-resources managers worldwide.